


Je ne suis pas Jeanne d'Arc

by theorangewitch



Series: Angstober [15]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-08-04 06:06:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16341230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theorangewitch/pseuds/theorangewitch
Summary: She sent up a prayer to Yondalla. First for the war. “Help them win it,” she whispered into the cold and empty air. “Help them free the Valleys.” Second for her mother. “Let me see her again. Let us be reunited in death and let her mind be whole again.” Third for herself. “But Nurturing Matriarch, I don’t want to die yet. I have not fulfilled the mission you gave me. And I am scared. I am scared of dying.”





	1. Tu dis que tu es mon juge mais je ne te crois pas

**Author's Note:**

> Angstober Day 18 - Sacrifice. The link to the full Angstober challenge is in the author's note of the first work in this series.

Janina wondered what her people would say about her when she was gone. Of course, that would depend on whether the uprising would successfully continue without her. She’d make an excellent martyr, of course, but would that be enough to spur the halflings of the Seven Valleys to lead their own revolution? If it was, she would be remembered as Janina Archbow the Valiant, a holy warrior, a beacon of hope and light in the face of terrible oppression. But if it wasn’t, she would be remembered as a charlatan at best, someone who brought false hope to her people, and at worst, she would be remembered as nobody at all.

In the meantime, the Seven Valleys suffered. She could see the Jardin Valley below her, locked away in the tallest tower of the looming fort the invaders had built. The mountain wind whipped through the open window, and she shivered, burying her head between her knees. The Jardin Valley, being the route through which the invaders came, had suffered the most out of the Seven. The once green meadows speckled with wildflowers had become trampled and burned, the stone houses replaced with temporary wooden ones closer to the mine entrances. The Jardin Valley was one of two still occupied by the invaders.

The first Valley to be freed by Janina and her forces was her home, the Wildwood Valley. It was more forested than the others, thus favoring the ambush tactics Janina employed. It also had fewer convenient mining locations, and so had a smaller invader presence. She could almost see it from here, beyond the mountains that divided her Valley from the Jardin Valley. She thought of the people within it, sharpening their weapons and guarding the borders. Some may be arguing for a plan to break her free before her execution tomorrow, while some would say that such a strike would be too risky. They were right, of course. She didn’t want them coming after her. It could put the whole war in jeopardy. Janina had by then accepted that she was going to die. 

But that didn’t mean that she  _ wanted  _ to die. She sent up a prayer to Yondalla. First for the war. “Help them win it,” she whispered into the cold and empty air. “Help them free the Valleys.” Second for her mother. “Let me see her again. Let us be reunited in death and let her mind be whole again.” Third for herself. “But Nurturing Matriarch, I don’t want to die yet. I have not fulfilled the mission you gave me. And I am scared. I am scared of dying.” She ran a hand over her shaved head and breathed a cloud into the air. She was to be burned at the stake. But she wasn’t sure if it was the heat she feared, or the cold that came after. 

A knock came at the door, which then swung open. It was Stela, the enslaved halfling from the Jardin Valley who brought Janina her meals. She was wearing a dirty wool blanket around her shoulders and a scarf over her head. In one hand she carried a bowl of soup. 

“Good morning, Stela,” Janina said. 

“It is a good morning,” Stela replied, setting down the bowl in front of Janina. “Today you are going to be free.” 

Janina was taken aback. “Stela, what are you talking about? Even if my troops do have a plan to free me, it will likely fail. I don’t want to douse your hopes, but you deserve the truth.”

“Your troops do not have a plan,  _ I  _ do.” And then she pulled the scarf off her head. It was shaved, just as Janina’s was. “And it will not fail.” 

It took a few moments for Janina to parse what Stela’s plan was. “You. You can’t.”

Stela sat down, shrugging. “I will.”

“I can’t let you do this, I can’t let you just take my place. They’ll execute you in my stead.” 

“That is the price of revolution, Miss Archbow,” Stela said. “You know that. You were ready to pay it yourself. But you are far more important to this world alive than you are dead. Martyrdom works only about half the time, but powerful leadership and the will of Yondalla always, always works.”

“On my honor as a paladin, I can’t let you do this.”

“On my honor as a halfling, you must,” Stela said, caressing Janina’s cheek. “Almost everyone in these Seven Valleys is willing to die for your cause. That includes me.” She unwrapped the blanket from around her shoulders and placed it in Janina’s lap, then took the scarf she’d been wearing on her head and stuffed it in Janina’s hand. “Now put these on.”

“But—“ Janina was surprised to find herself getting choked up. “But we don’t even look alike.”

Stela smiled sadly. “We all look alike to them, Miss Archbow.” 

Well. She had a point there.

“Now go. Your armor and sword is on display in the center courtyard. They think they’ve won.” 

Janina nodded, placing the scarf on her head and wrapping the blanket around herself. “Yondalla smiles upon you, Stela,” she said. “And I will not waste the gift you’ve given me.”

“It wasn’t a gift,” Stela answered. “I expect you to pay me back in the form of my Valley free and safe.” 

Janina nodded. And then she slipped out of the door. She did it with less reluctance than she should’ve had. Still, the thought rang in her mind.  _ When I said that I did not want to die, Nurturing Matriarch, I didn’t mean that I wanted someone to die in my stead.  _ But Yondalla had never presented Janina with any choices when it came to the war to win back the Seven Valleys. Why would she start now? 


	2. Alors tu dis que je suis une sainte mais ce n'est pas moi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But Janina didn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angstober Day 19 - Survivor's Guilt. This one's a downer. Oh well. Busy day so it's a bit late. 
> 
> Anyway, the link to the full angstober challenge is in the author's note of the first work in this series.

But Janina didn’t. She didn’t burst out of the invaders’ fort in a blaze of glory, preventing Stela’s execution and destroying one of the invaders’ greatest symbols of oppression in one fell swoop. Instead she snuck out, only taking her sword with her and leaving her armor, emblazoned with the symbol of Yondalla, behind. As soon as she was outside of the walls, tucked away in a tiny crag in the side of the mountain that the fort was perched on, she was overwhelmed by exhaustion. Her bones felt like their were made of lead, and her eyelids drooped. She slept there for--she didn’t know how long, but when she awoke, she was still weary. She thought of the prospect of descending into the Valleys and resuming her fight, seeing more of her comrades die, potentially only to be captured again and this time executed for real, and she grew wearier. 

So instead of heading east and into the Jardin Valley, she headed west, out of the Valleys altogether. The invaders had left a trail of conquered kingdoms between the Seven Valleys and their homeland, but there were places untouched by their terrible conquest. Janina headed south towards the sea, where the air was thick with water and the birds cried out songs that were foreign to her ears.

Though, of course, she did not forget about the war. She could not, even if she tried. And she did not try. She bore the smell of the Valleys burning in her nose, letting it mix with the sea salt air. She carried the screams and shouts of the soldiers under her command, hearing them blend with the sound of the waves. She leaned her head on her hand in a nameless tavern not unlike the one in which she’d planned the assault that began the war to take back the Valleys. Occasionally, she heard news of the war. Apparently, Janina Archbow the Valiant was no more. It seems that the invaders had killed Stela in her stead. 

Meanwhile, Nina Valiant lived on. And so did the war. 

Stela’s eyes burned in her brain with every new face she passed. It seemed every tavern girl and baker’s wife shared her olive complexion, her heart-shaped face, her soft smile. She broke her promise to Stela. And she didn’t know why. 

She didn’t pray to Yondalla anymore. She hadn’t since the day before her scheduled execution before Stela had come in and saved her life. And Yondalla didn’t speak to her. Of course, that was no change, as Yondalla hadn’t spoken to Janina--or Nina, as people now knew her--since that night in the desecrated temple in the Wildwood Valley. 

Nina had never doubted Yondalla’s cause, of course, though she’d always had her own reasons for sticking with the cause up until now. At first it was revenge for her mother’s death. The invaders had stormed Nina’s house while Nina was working in the fields and had slain Liucija Archbow where she sat, unaware of her surroundings, as she had been since Nina was a teenager. Then it was out of duty. She’d started this war. She intended to finish it. And now? Now she was tired. Too tired of almost dying, and far too tired of watching others die in her name. 

In the dark of the night, the sound of the sea crashing outside of her window, she wondered,  _ Will I ever return home? Will the halflings of the Seven Valleys ever be free? How will they remember me? How are they remembering me now? Will Yondalla ever forgive me? Will my mother? Will Stela? _

Janina turned over in her bed, resigning herself to never knowing.

**Author's Note:**

> Stela is one of two characters I've named after myself. So of course I had to kill her. Tomorrow's piece for day 19 - Survivor's Guilt will return to Janina and see what happened to her after escaping her execution.


End file.
